Connecting Stars: Prologue

Four years old…

A boy.

Six years old…

A boy grasps a girl's hand.

Ten years old…

The boy has bright orange hair and the girl is small.

Eleven years old…

The boy with orange hair wears a scowl on his face as the girl stands before him without much expression at all.

Twelve years old…

The boy with orange hair and a scowl looks up at the girl without an expression. He holds out his hand and she gives him hers.

Thirteen years old…

The girl without an expression walks up to the boy with orange hair and a scowl. He looks up at her with such wondrous eyes, filled with relief and disbelief. He slowly holds a hand out to her. She is tentative as she hands him one of her own. But it fits in his palm.

Fourteen years old…

The girl without an expression is actually quite nervous as she stands in front a crowd of students sitting, staring, scrutinizing. She looks over each of them and walks up to the boy with orange hair and a scowl. He looks up at her, relief and disbelief wash over his expression, her shoulders slump as though relieved herself. He looks down at her hand and holds out his for her. She is once again nervous as she places it in his, palm up. He looks up once again, smiling.

"Rukia?"

She was jolted back into reality just as the car came to a stop in front of the gates of what was to be her new school. She shifted uncomfortably, looking up at the building. The front entrance seemed to be shaded as the school blocked the sun from falling on the front courtyard. The shoulders of her white button up were a little too broad. Her black skirt hung a little too low. They were both taken from her sister's closet as temporary ware till she was issued her actual uniform.

"Are you nervous?" Her sister asked from beside her.

Rukia shook her head, but didn't look back at her sister as she opened the door to get out. Feeling as her sister tugged at the sleeve of her shirt, she looked back.

"Don't be nervous," were her encouraging words.

Rukia nodded her head.

"See you at home Nee-san."

"Good luck."

And the door was closed as she watched her sister drive away. Fifteen, and living in a town and going to a school that were both foreign to her, she stared up at the building. Her heart was pounding, racing. The beating against her ribcage was like a war drum, thirty beats a step. Walking up the steps, trying to find her classroom in the silence of the halls, the palms of her hands felt sticky with sweat. Opening the doors to her soon to be classroom, Rukia made sure to cause as little commotion as she could.

The door slid easy enough, not making any unnecessary noise or clatter, and she stood nervously at the doorway. Neither the class nor the teacher taking role seemed to notice her presence. But when the instructor turned to Rukia, looking much too young to be a high school teacher, she clenched her teeth and took a deep inhale. The teacher had just made the announcement about her transfer.

Rukia hesitated before entering. Facing the class, there wasn't much she could do. Her face could not find the will to muster a smile or even frown. She was expressionless. Her hands glued to her side, there was an awkward bow as she tried to hide her face with the mess on her head she called hair. But when she lifted her body back straight, her eyes began to immediately scan the room. Faces and faces, she saw so many faces. Some stared with wide-eyed wonder. Others looked back with a similar blank expression. But there was only one scowling ball of orange at the center left of the room. His head was down and it seemed almost as though he were not paying much attention to what was going on in the class at all. The desk looked like it entertained him more.

Without much thought or warning, she walked up to him. Slowly, steadily, no one stopped her.

When she stopped in front of him, she made a shadow that covered the morning light from hitting his eyes. There was a moment that passed before he slowly lifted his head from the table. And in that moment, it was obvious that he had been paying attention the whole time. In fact, he had been extra attentive when the teacher had paused in the middle of her morning lecture to introduce a new student. He just didn't have the courage to look up, he was afraid he would have been anticipating too much – expecting more than fate would allow. But it was her.

A look of relief washed over his face. Like a lost child finally being found, he held out his hand to her. And even if it had played so many times in her own mind, there was that moment of hesitance as she made her own hand move into his. For the first time, she was able to see the calluses so vividly, feel the rough ware of his palms. The marks of the years they had known of each other, seen each other, waited for one another, yet never being with the other. He noticed how small her hands really were, and she realized just how his seemed to envelope hers. And yet, holding them together, they fit perfectly.

White…

She wears white on this day, her face more mature and his shoulders a little broader. They smile to each other when he kisses her forehead. The bouquet of flowers she holds drops to the floor as she stands on tip toes to reach him. He leans down to help. There is a crowd watching, intent, but neither pays much attention. He pulls her closer, she presses to him; it is not the first time they have done this, experience and confidence their action is evident.

He squeezed her hand and gave her a smile. "I'm Kurosaki Ichigo."

"I'm Kuchiki Rukia."

He laughed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Kuchiki Rukia…" he says. The name slips off his tongue as though he'd said it a thousand times before. With ease, their hands switch positions so that it was palm to palm. He smoothed his thumb over her knuckles and she did not shy away. Instead, her posture seemed to relax a little as she took a step closer to him.

"Well Rukia," he looked up to her with a grin larger than any grin he had ever given before, "I've waited a long time for you."

She smiled back.

"Sorry I couldn't find you sooner."

End Prologue

Wow! it's been a long time. Three years has it been? My last upload to this sight was in 2013 I can't really say if this means I'm back for good or if chapter updates are going to come in regular intervals... but I've had this prologue to story I've been really wanting to write, rotting on my computer for a long time and, for whatever reason, decided to polish it up and upload it here.

Honestly, I thought that I was done with this sight... if only because its been so long and my stories... I don't want to say that I'm embarrassed by them, I definitely think that writing them made me a better writer. A lot of the ideas that went into those stories, over the years I no longer feel the same as I did when I first wrote them. Three years is a long time and I've certainly changed since I started writing back in, 2011 was it? I wasn't even in high school yet. So yes, my feelings towards those stories have changed, but I'll keep them up. If only because every so often I'll get an email about a review that makes me smile a bit :)

As for this story, I'll do my best to finish this and update as regularly as I can. I make no promises, but I hope that you all thoroughly enjoy it, new followers and old. Man, this author's note is long.

Please, review and let me know how you enjoyed it. Or didn't, I take both compliment and criticism.